Amid all the fuss generated by syndicated radio newstalk host Bill Cunningham’s promiscuous employment of Barack Obama’s improbable middle name, a perfectly sensible suggestion I offered many times over KIRO last year has still, oddly enough, yet to gain any traction whatsoever this Leap Day.
Shakespeare famously asked “What’s in a name?”, but when that name happens to be Hussein, the answer clearly is “plenty”. There's much in the wake of all the outrage, both authentic and synthetic, over the Cincinnati-based Cunningham's provocative word choice while warming up the crowd at an Ohio Republican rally awaiting John McCain's arrival. And much analysis during the last few days has been devoted to hashing out guidelines by which reporters and pundits can refer to Obama while ensuring all the delicate political correctness considerations remain in balance.
But this idea would bypass all that: I say the junior Senator from Illinois should publicly, and dramatically, march down to the Cook County Superior Court in Chicago and get his middle name legally removed. And while he’s at it, he should also seriously consider petitioning the judge to change his first name to Barry, the nickname by which the young Obama was known for many years.
Obama could declare to the voters, “As I stand on here the threshold of history, asking your solemn endorsement to shoulder this most profound of all American duties, it’s important that the name of the nation’s future 44th President sound American. So Barack Hussein Obama is again, and henceforth, Barry Obama.”
He could also point out that we're dealing with the Presidency here, an institution where precedent always carries enormous weight, and that John Quincy Adams, our 6th President, was the first to even have a middle name anyway.
Of course, I know how Obama would be bitterly savaged from the left for supposedly selling out his heritage, but those critics wouldn’t represent votes lost to the GOP anyway. And in these unchartered political waters, it wouldn't be surprising to see him also body-slammed by the right for flip-flopping. And yes, I also fully realize that this just ain't a-gonna happen.
(In case your reaction is, Come on, Styble, why not change your name? Well, as a matter of fact, I did delete my middle name as soon as I entered show business, on the premise that for anyone with a surname as rare as mine, a third name is a superfluous identifier.)
Ideally, of course, names shouldn’t matter a whit in politics. But I’ve heard several newstalk radio callers supporting Mike Huckabee lament about the “funny” name which burdens the Arkansan . (Last year Obama often used that very term on the stump to poke fun at two of his own three names--but never that pesky one in the middle.)
And I'm quite confident Oklahoma football-star-turned-Congressman J.C. Watts, by always using only his initials, was squandering a natural electoral edge his parents had (presumably) unwittingly afforded the future U.S. Representative. It would have been worth a good extra ten percentage points every two years, had the ballots read “Julius Caesar Watts”.
But America was never at war with Rome, and anyway, the ancient general-turned-dictator was actually a rather benevolent leader compared to a certain executed modern despot after whom Obama definitely was not middle-named.
So, once the former First Lady is out of the way and he can concentrate on the big one, it’s in Obama’s serious political interest to formally jettison at least the “Hussein”…just in case McCain proves unexpectedly difficult to steamroll on the first Tuesday after the first Monday this November. And besides, isn't his trademark word "change"?
BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle
Friday, February 29, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Styble on the late Messrs. Buckley & Steibel
William F. Buckley, Jr. appeared on newstalk radio shows only rarely, and I know of no instance in which he ever took listener calls. And that's one of at least two reasons I was never lucky enough to speak with the National Review founder.
But oh how I longed to hear the iconic author and wit, who died at home in Connecticut this morning, available in a phone-in format. I'd have endeavored mightily to get through, and likely would have succeeded. (Few never-calling listeners realize how readily any articulate and determined caller can make air, even on the more popular issues-oriented national shows.) What a kick it would have been to pose Buckley a political or societal question...plus, of course, a literately-crafted plaudit or two for the man who did as much as anyone in the 20th Century to inspire the sophisticated and trenchant employment of English!
Notwithstanding conservatism's domination of the newstalk format, when it came to broadcasting, Buckley apparently favored television to radio. For whatever reasons, he declined the invitations of most newstalk radio hosts. (Except Rush Limbaugh, notably.) Yet the prolific publisher pundit can still be said nonetheless to have had a profound, if indirect, influence on the genre's success.
Without National Review and the ascendant modern American conservative movement the magazine had sparked almost singlehandedly within a decade of its 1955 founding, Ronald Reagan likely would never have become President. That point has been made hundreds if not thousands of times elsewhere, but less noted is how Buckley is thusly owed a debt of gratitude by Limbaugh and his newstalk throne's numerous pretenders, who would not in turn have had an invigorated conservative zeitgeist into which to tap for their core listenerships.
Ironically, just yesterday, a mere single posting ["The Apolitico"] ago, I reiterated my often-made case for a primarily non-ideological listening perspective on newstalk radio. But even those of us who downplay the political while on the air (as I generally did in my KIRO work) must still grant that serious policy advocacy has and surely always will have a major role in the arcane art known as commercial newstalk radio. Ergo, Buckley's quite indirect impact on the genre was nonetheless significant.
One question which came up in every city where I've hosted a call-in show is, "Hey Styble, are you any relation to Bill Buckley's Firing Line producer Warren Steibel?" The inquiring callers clearly were unaware my surname is spelled rather differently. But even as a suburban St. Louis youngster in the mid-60s, for the obvious reason that Steibel name, listed as both producer and director as the Firing Line credits rolled, would jump off the TV screen at me, as well as at my older brother, who had turned me onto the award-winning PBS series.
Many of the ideas I would explicate decades later in my newstalk radio work were outgrowths of analyses I first heard on Firing Line from Buckley and his studio guests, who might be booked from virtually any field of American life. Yet something quite surprising about Firing Line I'd learn only from its producer himself, during his telephonic appearance in 1998 on my midnight Detroit show, The Pontiac Insomniac with Bryan Styble. (I had earlier cold-called Warren Steibel, impishly asking, "Our families obviously aren't related, but if for no better reason than we both pronounce it the same, will Steibel do the Styble show?") Turns out that Firing Line was, content-wise at least, pretty much always just a two-man operation, and Buckley's off-air partner all those years was as liberal as the host was conservative!
Two years later I found myself invited by Steibel into his spacious production office inside the National Review editorial suite in New York on, as it happened, St. Patrick's Day. Firing Line had concluded its remarkable 33-year run only a few months prior, and I then happened to be putting together Open All Night with Bryan Styble, a new overnight newstalk program for a syndication company which wanted to take national the offbeat Styble style.
So after being regaled by Steibel's behind-the-scenes reminiscences of Firing Line (including learning how those two New Yorkers came to base their TV work in South Carolina, of all places), I hoped he'd play talent scout: I needed a recommendation of someone who'd be good as one of several regular contributors on my forthcoming program, adding commentary on the cultural and political matters I'd be yakking up for late-night listeners once the syndicator began making the show available to local stations.
Steibel, who would be dead of cancer only 22 months later but appeared hale that holiday, pondered my recruitment request only for a moment: "Bryan, I think you're in luck, and that luck happens to be right down the hall." Steibel excused himself but quickly returned, accompanied by an elegantly-attired woman named Fran Bronson. Within the hour, Bronson had agreed to join my team, confiding that she'd long been intrigued about sometime trying her hand at talk radio.
Steibel had introduced Bronson to me as the legendary publisher's "longtime right-hand lady", and sure enough, her name had been listed below Buckley's on the National Review masthead almost from the start. (Limbaugh's touching--and opening-hour-consuming--Buckley tribute this morning didn't merely disclose how Buckley had served as the broadcaster's surrogate father, but also included a bouquet for Bronson: "I once said, 'Frances, can you tell me where I might find myself another one of you?' ")
But Steibel the producer didn't anticipate how Styble the broadcaster's luck was changing: Bronson volunteered that it was unfortunate that Buckley was out of the office all day, else she would have taken me in to meet her boss. And Open All Night never, alas, got up on the satellite back in 2000. But at least for one memorable afternoon that year, I was in such close quarters with such extraordinary intellectual accomplishment.
BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle
But oh how I longed to hear the iconic author and wit, who died at home in Connecticut this morning, available in a phone-in format. I'd have endeavored mightily to get through, and likely would have succeeded. (Few never-calling listeners realize how readily any articulate and determined caller can make air, even on the more popular issues-oriented national shows.) What a kick it would have been to pose Buckley a political or societal question...plus, of course, a literately-crafted plaudit or two for the man who did as much as anyone in the 20th Century to inspire the sophisticated and trenchant employment of English!
Notwithstanding conservatism's domination of the newstalk format, when it came to broadcasting, Buckley apparently favored television to radio. For whatever reasons, he declined the invitations of most newstalk radio hosts. (Except Rush Limbaugh, notably.) Yet the prolific publisher pundit can still be said nonetheless to have had a profound, if indirect, influence on the genre's success.
Without National Review and the ascendant modern American conservative movement the magazine had sparked almost singlehandedly within a decade of its 1955 founding, Ronald Reagan likely would never have become President. That point has been made hundreds if not thousands of times elsewhere, but less noted is how Buckley is thusly owed a debt of gratitude by Limbaugh and his newstalk throne's numerous pretenders, who would not in turn have had an invigorated conservative zeitgeist into which to tap for their core listenerships.
Ironically, just yesterday, a mere single posting ["The Apolitico"] ago, I reiterated my often-made case for a primarily non-ideological listening perspective on newstalk radio. But even those of us who downplay the political while on the air (as I generally did in my KIRO work) must still grant that serious policy advocacy has and surely always will have a major role in the arcane art known as commercial newstalk radio. Ergo, Buckley's quite indirect impact on the genre was nonetheless significant.
One question which came up in every city where I've hosted a call-in show is, "Hey Styble, are you any relation to Bill Buckley's Firing Line producer Warren Steibel?" The inquiring callers clearly were unaware my surname is spelled rather differently. But even as a suburban St. Louis youngster in the mid-60s, for the obvious reason that Steibel name, listed as both producer and director as the Firing Line credits rolled, would jump off the TV screen at me, as well as at my older brother, who had turned me onto the award-winning PBS series.
Many of the ideas I would explicate decades later in my newstalk radio work were outgrowths of analyses I first heard on Firing Line from Buckley and his studio guests, who might be booked from virtually any field of American life. Yet something quite surprising about Firing Line I'd learn only from its producer himself, during his telephonic appearance in 1998 on my midnight Detroit show, The Pontiac Insomniac with Bryan Styble. (I had earlier cold-called Warren Steibel, impishly asking, "Our families obviously aren't related, but if for no better reason than we both pronounce it the same, will Steibel do the Styble show?") Turns out that Firing Line was, content-wise at least, pretty much always just a two-man operation, and Buckley's off-air partner all those years was as liberal as the host was conservative!
Two years later I found myself invited by Steibel into his spacious production office inside the National Review editorial suite in New York on, as it happened, St. Patrick's Day. Firing Line had concluded its remarkable 33-year run only a few months prior, and I then happened to be putting together Open All Night with Bryan Styble, a new overnight newstalk program for a syndication company which wanted to take national the offbeat Styble style.
So after being regaled by Steibel's behind-the-scenes reminiscences of Firing Line (including learning how those two New Yorkers came to base their TV work in South Carolina, of all places), I hoped he'd play talent scout: I needed a recommendation of someone who'd be good as one of several regular contributors on my forthcoming program, adding commentary on the cultural and political matters I'd be yakking up for late-night listeners once the syndicator began making the show available to local stations.
Steibel, who would be dead of cancer only 22 months later but appeared hale that holiday, pondered my recruitment request only for a moment: "Bryan, I think you're in luck, and that luck happens to be right down the hall." Steibel excused himself but quickly returned, accompanied by an elegantly-attired woman named Fran Bronson. Within the hour, Bronson had agreed to join my team, confiding that she'd long been intrigued about sometime trying her hand at talk radio.
Steibel had introduced Bronson to me as the legendary publisher's "longtime right-hand lady", and sure enough, her name had been listed below Buckley's on the National Review masthead almost from the start. (Limbaugh's touching--and opening-hour-consuming--Buckley tribute this morning didn't merely disclose how Buckley had served as the broadcaster's surrogate father, but also included a bouquet for Bronson: "I once said, 'Frances, can you tell me where I might find myself another one of you?' ")
But Steibel the producer didn't anticipate how Styble the broadcaster's luck was changing: Bronson volunteered that it was unfortunate that Buckley was out of the office all day, else she would have taken me in to meet her boss. And Open All Night never, alas, got up on the satellite back in 2000. But at least for one memorable afternoon that year, I was in such close quarters with such extraordinary intellectual accomplishment.
BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The Apolitico
The greatest myth about commercial newstalk talk radio here in the new millennium is that it's principally a political genre.
Actually, I began pointing this out long before my Open Lines for Open Minds work over KIRO commenced three years ago. This has been a central contention of mine since the previous century, when my San Francisco Bay Area audiences in the early 90s and then my Detroit listeners in the mid-90s heard me often argue that the most intellectually and aesthetically rewarding way to evaluate a newstalk radio broadcast is not on the positions expressed thereon, but rather on how well the host conducts the program.
Inclusive of that, of course, is how articulately the viewpoints are posited and defended, how effectively the guests are interviewed, and, sometimes most important, how the callers' ideas are treated. But I suspect even Styble fans were seldom persuaded of my arcane point; my hunch is, despite what they might insist to the contrary, in the end most listeners just instinctively enjoy the hosts they agree with and dislike those on the other side of their political fence.
One reason for that is probably the flourishing success of Rush Limbaugh and so many of his numerous and lesser competing firebrands. These days, ideology is in, throughout most of the commercial newstalk radio universe at least. And I expect that it shall remain so evermore, as long as the dreaded (and arguably unconstitutional) Fairness Doctrine isn't reinstated, Zeus (and FCC) forfend.
But I never realized how true I am to this newstalk-ain't-mainly-about-politics principle until I noticed something in the course of correcting an entry a couple postings below. Re-reading my critique of The Glenn Beck Program, one of the more contemptible listens in newstalk radio ["Glenn Beck's Ego Eclipses Fact", two entries below], I needed to adjust for a historical detail I'd learned only after publishing it on Wednesday. Delineating how profoundly Beck had bungled describing for his listeners a vignette about Columbus prompted me to then read a couple detailed accounts of the explorer's entire life. (That, incidentally, made me quickly regret never--despite possessing a Columbus Day birthday!--taking the trouble to learn just how remarkably dogged and triumphal a career was that of The Admiral of the Ocean Seas.) What I initially had incorrect involved Columbus's location: two years into his fourth and final voyage to the New World, he had been shipwrecked--rather than in port, as I had it--with his expedition for many months on Jamaica when he pulled, on some hostile natives, his inspired lunar eclipse ruse on Leap Year Day 1504.
But my posting was notable for what some readers might regard a much more glaring omission. As it happens, what many might consider a word vital to any review of Beck's show never once appeared in mine--and this, ironically enough, in the very essay which lambasted Beck for irresponsibly failing to include an absolutely indispensable word ("eclipse") for the benefit of his audience!
Thus my expose of Beck's sometimes staggering ignorance (too often on display in a second-tier national show on which KTTH/Seattle squanders the prominence and prestige of its morning-drive timeslot) may itself have seemed correspondingly lacking. It's true that I never employed that one particular term which surely first comes to many minds when thinking of Beck's work, whether on radio, or in his new medium, television. Yep, I never once mentioned that he's a conservative. (Actually, I doubt he'd quarrel even with his views being described as arch-conservative.)
Of course, as in nearly every aspect of life, in newstalk radio things are relative. So, sure, Beck (who's been increasingly influential nationally ever since his debut on CNN Headline a year ago) is seldom as reckless, self-righteous and unprincipled as, say, the self-described "independent conservative" Michael Savage routinely proves himself to be on his sorry syndicated Frisco-based production (carried weeknights, though never live, also by KTTH).
Still, Beck, the loudmouth political satirist, Mormon convert and (only incidentally, alas) newstalk host, nevertheless ranks, overall, as yet another talk radio embarrassment to the conservative movement. Now, I never mentioned Beck's politics in that piece despite the fact that Beck's show is every bit as ideological as Limbaugh's (though he inadvertently reveals daily he harbors but a tiny fraction of Rush's talent, either as a broadcaster or entertainer).
It's hard to remember this in 2008, but when JFK and LBJ were in office, Mort Sahl was far and away the most celebrated stand-up comedian in the nation. His politically-hip act sometimes included this one-liner: "A friend of mine is so liberal that he's never even noticed that Jesse Jackson is black!" While we await some successor funnyman to update Sahl's gag into a Barack Obama joke, I can take pride that in the course of excoriating his national newstalk radio work, I never even noticed that Glenn Beck is conservative.
Actually, I began pointing this out long before my Open Lines for Open Minds work over KIRO commenced three years ago. This has been a central contention of mine since the previous century, when my San Francisco Bay Area audiences in the early 90s and then my Detroit listeners in the mid-90s heard me often argue that the most intellectually and aesthetically rewarding way to evaluate a newstalk radio broadcast is not on the positions expressed thereon, but rather on how well the host conducts the program.
Inclusive of that, of course, is how articulately the viewpoints are posited and defended, how effectively the guests are interviewed, and, sometimes most important, how the callers' ideas are treated. But I suspect even Styble fans were seldom persuaded of my arcane point; my hunch is, despite what they might insist to the contrary, in the end most listeners just instinctively enjoy the hosts they agree with and dislike those on the other side of their political fence.
One reason for that is probably the flourishing success of Rush Limbaugh and so many of his numerous and lesser competing firebrands. These days, ideology is in, throughout most of the commercial newstalk radio universe at least. And I expect that it shall remain so evermore, as long as the dreaded (and arguably unconstitutional) Fairness Doctrine isn't reinstated, Zeus (and FCC) forfend.
But I never realized how true I am to this newstalk-ain't-mainly-about-politics principle until I noticed something in the course of correcting an entry a couple postings below. Re-reading my critique of The Glenn Beck Program, one of the more contemptible listens in newstalk radio ["Glenn Beck's Ego Eclipses Fact", two entries below], I needed to adjust for a historical detail I'd learned only after publishing it on Wednesday. Delineating how profoundly Beck had bungled describing for his listeners a vignette about Columbus prompted me to then read a couple detailed accounts of the explorer's entire life. (That, incidentally, made me quickly regret never--despite possessing a Columbus Day birthday!--taking the trouble to learn just how remarkably dogged and triumphal a career was that of The Admiral of the Ocean Seas.) What I initially had incorrect involved Columbus's location: two years into his fourth and final voyage to the New World, he had been shipwrecked--rather than in port, as I had it--with his expedition for many months on Jamaica when he pulled, on some hostile natives, his inspired lunar eclipse ruse on Leap Year Day 1504.
But my posting was notable for what some readers might regard a much more glaring omission. As it happens, what many might consider a word vital to any review of Beck's show never once appeared in mine--and this, ironically enough, in the very essay which lambasted Beck for irresponsibly failing to include an absolutely indispensable word ("eclipse") for the benefit of his audience!
Thus my expose of Beck's sometimes staggering ignorance (too often on display in a second-tier national show on which KTTH/Seattle squanders the prominence and prestige of its morning-drive timeslot) may itself have seemed correspondingly lacking. It's true that I never employed that one particular term which surely first comes to many minds when thinking of Beck's work, whether on radio, or in his new medium, television. Yep, I never once mentioned that he's a conservative. (Actually, I doubt he'd quarrel even with his views being described as arch-conservative.)
Of course, as in nearly every aspect of life, in newstalk radio things are relative. So, sure, Beck (who's been increasingly influential nationally ever since his debut on CNN Headline a year ago) is seldom as reckless, self-righteous and unprincipled as, say, the self-described "independent conservative" Michael Savage routinely proves himself to be on his sorry syndicated Frisco-based production (carried weeknights, though never live, also by KTTH).
Still, Beck, the loudmouth political satirist, Mormon convert and (only incidentally, alas) newstalk host, nevertheless ranks, overall, as yet another talk radio embarrassment to the conservative movement. Now, I never mentioned Beck's politics in that piece despite the fact that Beck's show is every bit as ideological as Limbaugh's (though he inadvertently reveals daily he harbors but a tiny fraction of Rush's talent, either as a broadcaster or entertainer).
It's hard to remember this in 2008, but when JFK and LBJ were in office, Mort Sahl was far and away the most celebrated stand-up comedian in the nation. His politically-hip act sometimes included this one-liner: "A friend of mine is so liberal that he's never even noticed that Jesse Jackson is black!" While we await some successor funnyman to update Sahl's gag into a Barack Obama joke, I can take pride that in the course of excoriating his national newstalk radio work, I never even noticed that Glenn Beck is conservative.
BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle
Friday, February 22, 2008
Medved's Misrepresented Call of the Week
The Michael Medved Show
KTTH 770 kHz
Weekday afternoons 12-3
Near the outset of his program each Friday, Michael Medved runs his "Call of the Week". The feature culls for re-air invariably one of the goofiest phoned-in contributions from the previous four editions of his often superb nationally-syndicated broadcast, which originates at KTTH/Seattle.
Setting up the segment each time is a substantial example of what newstalk radio people call "production", in this case a montage, complete with sarcastic voice-over introduction, of outlandish called-in snippets from previous Medved shows. But at least one of them wasn't even contributed by a caller but rather in fact by an invited Medved guest. Her clip, which seems as wacky as all those others strung together by his longtime production guy Jeremy Steiner, has her opining that "Everyone goes to the bathroom on campus every day, unless they have some great powers..."
KTTH 770 kHz
Weekday afternoons 12-3
Near the outset of his program each Friday, Michael Medved runs his "Call of the Week". The feature culls for re-air invariably one of the goofiest phoned-in contributions from the previous four editions of his often superb nationally-syndicated broadcast, which originates at KTTH/Seattle.
Setting up the segment each time is a substantial example of what newstalk radio people call "production", in this case a montage, complete with sarcastic voice-over introduction, of outlandish called-in snippets from previous Medved shows. But at least one of them wasn't even contributed by a caller but rather in fact by an invited Medved guest. Her clip, which seems as wacky as all those others strung together by his longtime production guy Jeremy Steiner, has her opining that "Everyone goes to the bathroom on campus every day, unless they have some great powers..."
I was tuned in the afternoon a couple years back when that line was originally heard by Medheads, as his hardest-core fans among his national audience call themselves. (That wasn't just happenstance; I usually manage to catch all fifteen of Medved's weekly broadcast hours myself.) His guest (whose name and affiliation I don't recall and haven't been able to ascertain) was a campus newspaper columnist. She'd provocatively proposed, in the interests of both an enlightened collegiate community and budgetary savings, unisex restrooms for her school. (We actually had a few such facilities on the Back Bay campus at Boston University way back in the 70s--we called 'em "People's Pots"--yet my alma mater is still standing in 2008.)
But Medved's conservative and moralistic sensibilities naturally found the co-ed's serious-if-impractical proposal over the top, so he invited her for a telephonic interview. It was during their first segment that she uttered the line which has been living on in national newstalk infamy every Friday ever since. But I distinctly remember thinking upon initially hearing it, "Hey, at least this woman's witty..."
Sure, Medved readily demolished her simplistic arguments for phasing out gender-segregated bathrooms, but that's beside the point. Indeed, as I recall she said many ill-reasoned things that hour, but what ended up in the COTW montage wasn't one of them.
A newstalk host is obligated to never misquote or misrepresent the ideas of his previous guests. (That applies equally to his callers, of course, whom I also consider to be a host's guests, as reflected in my line often used over KIRO to "book yourself as a guest on the broadcast by calling in".) Accordingly, in the interests of fairness and intellectual honesty, Medved should instruct Steiner to delete her restroom quip from that aural assemblage.
But better yet, Medved might consider altering the entire focus of the COTW feature. I mean, just today he stated something which implies the COTW works at cross-purposes with this mostly solid program's overall thrust.
It happened during the daily minute live promo heard only by his Seattle listeners that Medved inserts upon Rush Limbaugh's sign-off from Florida or New York at 11:59:00. (Medved only adds this brief program preview on days when his ensuing show isn't on remote and therefore is originating from KTTH.) Limbaugh closed with a quick word praise for his screeners, for the calibre of calls they had cleared for him this morning, Medved then echoed that sentiment for his own national callers: "And we also have the best callers in talk radio on The Michael Medved Show, coming up right after the news."
So instead of putting the spotlight on the loonies, why not so designate and re-air one of the many literate and trenchant contributions of a Medved caller during the shows earlier that week? Medved would thus be highlighting what's terrific, rather than what's foolish, on a program that ranks (behind, of course, Limbaugh) as consistently the second-most-fulfilling listen in all of syndicated newstalk radio.
BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Glenn Beck's Ego Eclipses Fact
The Glenn Beck Program
KTTH 770 kHz
Weekday mornings 6-9 am
Beck (the widely respected recording artist) famously sang, "I'm a loser, Baby/So why don't you kill me?" When listening to Glenn Beck (the vastly overrated newstalk host) on his frequently self-indulgent and ignorant broadcasts, I sometimes feel like killing my radio.
In the first hour of this morning's edition of his daily syndicated show, New York City-based Beck was cross-talking with his producer/sidekick Stu. He then told of how Christopher Columbus was once saved by a late February total lunar eclipse, another of which shall occur, as it astronomically happens, tonight. It seems that the famed explorer was on his fourth and final visit to the New World in 1504, and his expedition was seriously down on its luck, shipwrecked and even facing starvation, not to mention hostile natives, in what is now northern Jamaica.
But the mariner hadn't earned the title Admiral of the Ocean Seas for nothing. While contemplating his limited options, Columbus's eyes surely widened when he noticed, in an almanac he'd salvaged from his crippled craft, that a German astronomer had calculated that a total lunar eclipse visible from the Western Hemisphere was imminent (on the evening of Leap Year Day, as it happened).
So Columbus approached the local chieftain on February 26th, warning him that if the explorer's entire party wasn't replenished with supplies, he'd destroy the moon three nights hence. Fortunately for Columbus and his men, the skies there were clear enough on the 29th, the terrified natives submitted as soon as the moon disappeared into the earth's shadow, and Columbus survived to return to Europe, where he would spend his remaining two years in retirement and obscurity.
Now Beck of course rather gratingly told this tale in typical Beck style--i.e., laiden with whimsical and unfunny gags on Sandals resorts, Rastafarians, etc. And he and Stu--who hopefully is nowhere near as young as his voice sounds--even described, in their fashion, the "blood-red" moon. That's a visual effect caused by the Earth's atmosphere which occurs during most total lunar eclipses, and therefore is something we may begin witnessing tonight when totality commences at 7:01 pm Pacific Time (assuming cloud cover above the Puget Sound region doesn't end up masking the whole shebang from us).
But so preoccupied was Beck with doing his "bit" (as such things are known in the radio biz) that he provided virtually none of the historical or scientific detail I related above. No, that might have elbowed aside some of his alleged comedy. So instead of seizing the opportunity to simultaneously inform his audience about something fascinating long ago while connecting it to an event tonight, Beck elected instead to make fun (if not funny) of an especially-inspired moment of a career so momentous that historian Michael Hart [see "Poll Faulting" archived herein July 2007] ranks it fully the ninth most influential in all of history. Beck never even bothered to mention that all this took place in 1504, leaving listeners to not unreasonably presume it happened three voyages prior during the more-celebrated Columbian year of 1492.
Such egregious factual lapses are because newstalk host Beck presents himself to his audience primarily as a funnyman. And man, it's funny how fundamentally he misunderstands the principal reason why most listeners might want to tune into a newstalk show like his. Most days, Beck's heavily-produced satirical takes on the news come off at best as forced and often even ill-informed, with the entire presentation usually emerging as little more than a low-rent pretender to the throne of the vastly-more-talented (and waaaaaaay funnier) Rush Limbaugh.
Like too many of his colleagues, Beck often fails to cite sources. So I wasn't surprised when he neglected to mention that many of us had read the details of this familiar (at least to historians) chapter in the Columbus story over the weekend, when it was featured prominently on The Drudge Report, widely considered to be the most-consulted website among newstalk radio hosts.
Throughout his bit, Beck referred to the "full moon". And that's technically correct, of course; every middle school science student is taught that lunar eclipses only happen with the moon in its full phase (just as a solar eclipse can only occur during a new moon).
But there was something truly breathtaking about this particular segment of Beck's show: despite riffing on (or, more precisely, just around) this remarkable historical vignette for over five minutes, neither Beck nor his yes-man ever once uttered this celestial phenomenon's lynchpin word.
That is, while each talked of the "full moon", the term "eclipse" was never used! (Needless to say, a garden-variety full moon never apparently disappears from the heavens.) Thus any listener who hadn't happened to have been aware of tonight's impending sky show must have been left totally mystified all along as to what in the heck Beck was talking about.
This constitutes nothing short of broadcasting malpractice.
BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle
KTTH 770 kHz
Weekday mornings 6-9 am
Beck (the widely respected recording artist) famously sang, "I'm a loser, Baby/So why don't you kill me?" When listening to Glenn Beck (the vastly overrated newstalk host) on his frequently self-indulgent and ignorant broadcasts, I sometimes feel like killing my radio.
In the first hour of this morning's edition of his daily syndicated show, New York City-based Beck was cross-talking with his producer/sidekick Stu. He then told of how Christopher Columbus was once saved by a late February total lunar eclipse, another of which shall occur, as it astronomically happens, tonight. It seems that the famed explorer was on his fourth and final visit to the New World in 1504, and his expedition was seriously down on its luck, shipwrecked and even facing starvation, not to mention hostile natives, in what is now northern Jamaica.
But the mariner hadn't earned the title Admiral of the Ocean Seas for nothing. While contemplating his limited options, Columbus's eyes surely widened when he noticed, in an almanac he'd salvaged from his crippled craft, that a German astronomer had calculated that a total lunar eclipse visible from the Western Hemisphere was imminent (on the evening of Leap Year Day, as it happened).
So Columbus approached the local chieftain on February 26th, warning him that if the explorer's entire party wasn't replenished with supplies, he'd destroy the moon three nights hence. Fortunately for Columbus and his men, the skies there were clear enough on the 29th, the terrified natives submitted as soon as the moon disappeared into the earth's shadow, and Columbus survived to return to Europe, where he would spend his remaining two years in retirement and obscurity.
Now Beck of course rather gratingly told this tale in typical Beck style--i.e., laiden with whimsical and unfunny gags on Sandals resorts, Rastafarians, etc. And he and Stu--who hopefully is nowhere near as young as his voice sounds--even described, in their fashion, the "blood-red" moon. That's a visual effect caused by the Earth's atmosphere which occurs during most total lunar eclipses, and therefore is something we may begin witnessing tonight when totality commences at 7:01 pm Pacific Time (assuming cloud cover above the Puget Sound region doesn't end up masking the whole shebang from us).
But so preoccupied was Beck with doing his "bit" (as such things are known in the radio biz) that he provided virtually none of the historical or scientific detail I related above. No, that might have elbowed aside some of his alleged comedy. So instead of seizing the opportunity to simultaneously inform his audience about something fascinating long ago while connecting it to an event tonight, Beck elected instead to make fun (if not funny) of an especially-inspired moment of a career so momentous that historian Michael Hart [see "Poll Faulting" archived herein July 2007] ranks it fully the ninth most influential in all of history. Beck never even bothered to mention that all this took place in 1504, leaving listeners to not unreasonably presume it happened three voyages prior during the more-celebrated Columbian year of 1492.
Such egregious factual lapses are because newstalk host Beck presents himself to his audience primarily as a funnyman. And man, it's funny how fundamentally he misunderstands the principal reason why most listeners might want to tune into a newstalk show like his. Most days, Beck's heavily-produced satirical takes on the news come off at best as forced and often even ill-informed, with the entire presentation usually emerging as little more than a low-rent pretender to the throne of the vastly-more-talented (and waaaaaaay funnier) Rush Limbaugh.
Like too many of his colleagues, Beck often fails to cite sources. So I wasn't surprised when he neglected to mention that many of us had read the details of this familiar (at least to historians) chapter in the Columbus story over the weekend, when it was featured prominently on The Drudge Report, widely considered to be the most-consulted website among newstalk radio hosts.
Throughout his bit, Beck referred to the "full moon". And that's technically correct, of course; every middle school science student is taught that lunar eclipses only happen with the moon in its full phase (just as a solar eclipse can only occur during a new moon).
But there was something truly breathtaking about this particular segment of Beck's show: despite riffing on (or, more precisely, just around) this remarkable historical vignette for over five minutes, neither Beck nor his yes-man ever once uttered this celestial phenomenon's lynchpin word.
That is, while each talked of the "full moon", the term "eclipse" was never used! (Needless to say, a garden-variety full moon never apparently disappears from the heavens.) Thus any listener who hadn't happened to have been aware of tonight's impending sky show must have been left totally mystified all along as to what in the heck Beck was talking about.
This constitutes nothing short of broadcasting malpractice.
BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Rush Errs
The Rush Limbaugh Show
KTTH 770 kHz
Weekdays 9-noon
[plus overnight & Sunday afternoon replays]
Coming from a prominent southeastern Missouri family that is quite accomplished in the law, you'd expect that Rush Limbaugh would have a pretty thorough familiarity with the United States Constitution. And he does, as he demonstrates on his dominant national newstalk show pretty much daily. But just minutes ago over his Excellence in Broadcasting Network, he made a whopper of a constitutional error.
When railing against Barack Obama's apparent ignorance of civics in a Boston Globe interview from December, Limbaugh declared that the Senate isn't empowered to ratify treaties.
Well, sure it is, Rush! It's all right there in the second paragraph of Article II, Section II. True, that's the Article which delineates the powers of the Presidency, not the Senate, and the word "ratify" is never used, but it's unambiguous nonetheless. And given how prominent the Senate's ratification role traditionally has been, everywhere from the protracted SALT II debate to the plotline of Advise and Consent, this truly is a glaring factual mistake.
But maybe I should cut the undisputed king of talk radio some slack here for that uncorrected miscue, given what he's been through during the last fortnight. If you haven't noticed, his hugely influential program been at the center of extraordinary sequence of events that has emerged as one of the most interesting backstories of Campaign 2008.
As John McCain's various (and mostly hapless) rivals for the GOP nomination have fallen by the wayside over the last couple of weeks, the bombastic broadcaster's long-simmering distrust of the controversial Arizonan finally boiled over. And now, not merely the Limbaugh audience is paying attention.
Limbaugh's nasty vocal impression of an always-angry McCain has long been a daily feature of his program, along with periodic volleys of satirical brilliance against him from EIB musical parodist Paul Shanklin (scroll down for "EIB Parodies Creedence"). Now the McCain campaign is finally responding to these and all the other shots that newstalk radio's dominant program has long been firing his way.
So far this confrontation has only been through surrogates; neither the radio talk titan nor the candidate have admitted to any direct communication (though a number of GOP elders have reportedly been pushing for just such a private summit, in the interests of party unity). The most tangible evidence from McCain's end that Rush has been getting under his reputedly-thin skin may be the huge uptick recently in his mentions on the stump of the word "conservative". Of course, McCain's critics on the right suspect this promiscuous employment of the C-word just cloaks his generally centrist--or even downright liberal, if you ask Rush--legislative bent.
Despite his bitter suspicions of the former Keating Five legislator, Limbaugh remains scrupulously fair to him; he's always quite respectful of the former Navy pilot's decorated service in Vietnam, especially regarding his horrific captivity in Hanoi. But, as a Limbaugh caller pointedly pointed out last week, Benedict Arnold was also once known principally as a war hero.
The imbroglio has played out as McCain has tightened his presumptive grasp on the GOP nomination, with various cable news talking heads as bit players, and with op-ed writers from the New York Times on down second-guessing the stated motivations of both the Senator and the broadcaster. Yesterday, the affair culminated in the pair's faces landing on the Newsweek cover under the blurb, "There Will Be Blood: Why the Right Hates McCain".
The amazing ascension like the phoenix of this recently-left-for-political-dead man from Phoenix was widely seen as proof positive that Limbaugh's power has in turn waned. Rush was thus repeatedly dismissed last week as a has-been, since this all supposedly adds up to his losing the "McCain v. Limbaugh primary".
Yet now he's also finding himself portrayed as somehow still retaining enough clout to clandestinely tug the strings of the opposition party. The line of thinking here is a maneuvering that eases the Clintons' effort to by hook or by crook outlast Obama. Hillary then bests a Rush-weakened McCain in November, this preposterous theory goes, and Billary thus returns to the White House, all so as to serve as perfect foils for another four or eight years of Limbaugh lampoons.
But while he might be a bit loose with the occasional constitutional fact, Limbaugh's precisely correct when he contends that his broadcast's remarkable success is not now, nor ever has been, the least bit dependent upon who's in the White House. As he been saying for years into that EIB microphone, "No matter who's there, I'll be here." And for as long as he's able to fulfill that open-ended pledge, that's a beneficial thing-- both in general for the society, and in particular for commercial newstalk radio listeners.
BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle
KTTH 770 kHz
Weekdays 9-noon
[plus overnight & Sunday afternoon replays]
Coming from a prominent southeastern Missouri family that is quite accomplished in the law, you'd expect that Rush Limbaugh would have a pretty thorough familiarity with the United States Constitution. And he does, as he demonstrates on his dominant national newstalk show pretty much daily. But just minutes ago over his Excellence in Broadcasting Network, he made a whopper of a constitutional error.
When railing against Barack Obama's apparent ignorance of civics in a Boston Globe interview from December, Limbaugh declared that the Senate isn't empowered to ratify treaties.
Well, sure it is, Rush! It's all right there in the second paragraph of Article II, Section II. True, that's the Article which delineates the powers of the Presidency, not the Senate, and the word "ratify" is never used, but it's unambiguous nonetheless. And given how prominent the Senate's ratification role traditionally has been, everywhere from the protracted SALT II debate to the plotline of Advise and Consent, this truly is a glaring factual mistake.
But maybe I should cut the undisputed king of talk radio some slack here for that uncorrected miscue, given what he's been through during the last fortnight. If you haven't noticed, his hugely influential program been at the center of extraordinary sequence of events that has emerged as one of the most interesting backstories of Campaign 2008.
As John McCain's various (and mostly hapless) rivals for the GOP nomination have fallen by the wayside over the last couple of weeks, the bombastic broadcaster's long-simmering distrust of the controversial Arizonan finally boiled over. And now, not merely the Limbaugh audience is paying attention.
Limbaugh's nasty vocal impression of an always-angry McCain has long been a daily feature of his program, along with periodic volleys of satirical brilliance against him from EIB musical parodist Paul Shanklin (scroll down for "EIB Parodies Creedence"). Now the McCain campaign is finally responding to these and all the other shots that newstalk radio's dominant program has long been firing his way.
So far this confrontation has only been through surrogates; neither the radio talk titan nor the candidate have admitted to any direct communication (though a number of GOP elders have reportedly been pushing for just such a private summit, in the interests of party unity). The most tangible evidence from McCain's end that Rush has been getting under his reputedly-thin skin may be the huge uptick recently in his mentions on the stump of the word "conservative". Of course, McCain's critics on the right suspect this promiscuous employment of the C-word just cloaks his generally centrist--or even downright liberal, if you ask Rush--legislative bent.
Despite his bitter suspicions of the former Keating Five legislator, Limbaugh remains scrupulously fair to him; he's always quite respectful of the former Navy pilot's decorated service in Vietnam, especially regarding his horrific captivity in Hanoi. But, as a Limbaugh caller pointedly pointed out last week, Benedict Arnold was also once known principally as a war hero.
The imbroglio has played out as McCain has tightened his presumptive grasp on the GOP nomination, with various cable news talking heads as bit players, and with op-ed writers from the New York Times on down second-guessing the stated motivations of both the Senator and the broadcaster. Yesterday, the affair culminated in the pair's faces landing on the Newsweek cover under the blurb, "There Will Be Blood: Why the Right Hates McCain".
The amazing ascension like the phoenix of this recently-left-for-political-dead man from Phoenix was widely seen as proof positive that Limbaugh's power has in turn waned. Rush was thus repeatedly dismissed last week as a has-been, since this all supposedly adds up to his losing the "McCain v. Limbaugh primary".
Yet now he's also finding himself portrayed as somehow still retaining enough clout to clandestinely tug the strings of the opposition party. The line of thinking here is a maneuvering that eases the Clintons' effort to by hook or by crook outlast Obama. Hillary then bests a Rush-weakened McCain in November, this preposterous theory goes, and Billary thus returns to the White House, all so as to serve as perfect foils for another four or eight years of Limbaugh lampoons.
But while he might be a bit loose with the occasional constitutional fact, Limbaugh's precisely correct when he contends that his broadcast's remarkable success is not now, nor ever has been, the least bit dependent upon who's in the White House. As he been saying for years into that EIB microphone, "No matter who's there, I'll be here." And for as long as he's able to fulfill that open-ended pledge, that's a beneficial thing-- both in general for the society, and in particular for commercial newstalk radio listeners.
BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Beyond Debate: Hillary Should Thank Rush
If you're heading out to an Evergreen State caucus later today, consider how newstalk radio may have helped you sharpen the debating skills you'll need to sway fellow Washingtonians from supporting Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Of the numerous advantages radio enjoys over its more ballyhooed sister-medium television, its primacy of caller discussion is one of the three greatest (stay tuned to Radioactive Seattle for essays soon delineating the other two).
Sure, a few TV shows have call-in segments, but they're always used only sparingly, and anyway seldom for anything more than giveaways or mere questions to guests. Non-commercial C-SPAN provides occasional open-line segments allowing viewers to make a case for whatever their passion, political or societal. And on the callers' end, the results there can be as unexpected and even trenchant as would occur from time to time during Open Lines for Open Minds on my KIRO broadcasts. But hosts at all C-SPAN networks never veer from Brian Lamb's apparent ironclad policy that they remain steadfastly neutral with callers, and debate by definition is never one-sided.
No, across the various broadcast news media, bona fide caller debate pretty much remains the exclusive domain of talk radio. And only in the commercial newstalk genre do callers routinely engage in rhetorical exchange with any real substance.
And while some newstalk shows have formats that exclude caller input, any good host will at least vigorously challenge guests on behalf of the listeners. But the best programs are usually ones that put callers in the center of the arena. Anyone who participates will find their debating skills inevitably honed, moreso if the host (like, say, KIRO's Dave Ross or KVI's John Carlson) is fair-minded and skilled at helping callers frame their arguments.
Alas, some shows have formats which stack things against callers in one way or another, almost guaranteeing that the host gets the upper hand on nearly every listener contribution (syndicated conservative firebrand Michael Savage may be the worst offender here). So call-in radio is anything but always a level playing field, but at least you're able to get into the game.
But probably few listeners notice how the newstalk format also even bolsters reasoning skills of those in the audience who never call in. That is, just hearing all manner of perspectives on various issues large and small inevitably nudges a mind into better fact organization and value sorting. A more thorough and nuanced command of political issues is but one of the beneficial consequential effects.
Like other radio yakkers, I lamented for many years to audiences the devolution of our presidential selection system since the 1950s. Maybe it's the same general old-school impulse that has made me emulate the Golden Age of Radio in my broadcasts (or perhaps it's just the arbitrariness and endlessness of our electoral process nowdays), but I actually long for the days of smoke-filled rooms at the national conventions. That's when the parties still controlled who would serve as their standardbearers toward the White House, and managed to finalize decisions on him, his running mate and a platform all in less than a single week, if not a single ballot.
But now we're stuck with Iowa and push-polling and tiers of handlers and round-the-clock press coverage and all the attenuated rest. Yet there's still at least one charm in this jumble, and it's in the caucus format. These unusual events require a lot of face-to-face talk (at least under the Democrats' rules), and much of it is substantive debate.
What people say about candidates is usually more interesting than anything the candidates say themselves on the hustings, and here's one place where actual ballot-box results ride on how effectively such talk is presented. Unlike a primary, where you represent but your own solitary vote (and you do so silently in the privacy of a booth anyway), in a caucus you can also add as many additional votes for your guy or gal as your argument persuades.
Vigorous debate, whether over our kitchen tables amongst our loved ones or amid strangers at a bus stop, always tones the mind, and that's always a good thing. But these caucus encounters also actually steer the society in their small way.
So go make your best case for Obama or Rodham Clinton today--but also thank newstalk radio. Not merely for the role it plays in our democracy, but also for enhancing, if just a bit, our collective reasoning.
BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle
Of the numerous advantages radio enjoys over its more ballyhooed sister-medium television, its primacy of caller discussion is one of the three greatest (stay tuned to Radioactive Seattle for essays soon delineating the other two).
Sure, a few TV shows have call-in segments, but they're always used only sparingly, and anyway seldom for anything more than giveaways or mere questions to guests. Non-commercial C-SPAN provides occasional open-line segments allowing viewers to make a case for whatever their passion, political or societal. And on the callers' end, the results there can be as unexpected and even trenchant as would occur from time to time during Open Lines for Open Minds on my KIRO broadcasts. But hosts at all C-SPAN networks never veer from Brian Lamb's apparent ironclad policy that they remain steadfastly neutral with callers, and debate by definition is never one-sided.
No, across the various broadcast news media, bona fide caller debate pretty much remains the exclusive domain of talk radio. And only in the commercial newstalk genre do callers routinely engage in rhetorical exchange with any real substance.
And while some newstalk shows have formats that exclude caller input, any good host will at least vigorously challenge guests on behalf of the listeners. But the best programs are usually ones that put callers in the center of the arena. Anyone who participates will find their debating skills inevitably honed, moreso if the host (like, say, KIRO's Dave Ross or KVI's John Carlson) is fair-minded and skilled at helping callers frame their arguments.
Alas, some shows have formats which stack things against callers in one way or another, almost guaranteeing that the host gets the upper hand on nearly every listener contribution (syndicated conservative firebrand Michael Savage may be the worst offender here). So call-in radio is anything but always a level playing field, but at least you're able to get into the game.
But probably few listeners notice how the newstalk format also even bolsters reasoning skills of those in the audience who never call in. That is, just hearing all manner of perspectives on various issues large and small inevitably nudges a mind into better fact organization and value sorting. A more thorough and nuanced command of political issues is but one of the beneficial consequential effects.
Like other radio yakkers, I lamented for many years to audiences the devolution of our presidential selection system since the 1950s. Maybe it's the same general old-school impulse that has made me emulate the Golden Age of Radio in my broadcasts (or perhaps it's just the arbitrariness and endlessness of our electoral process nowdays), but I actually long for the days of smoke-filled rooms at the national conventions. That's when the parties still controlled who would serve as their standardbearers toward the White House, and managed to finalize decisions on him, his running mate and a platform all in less than a single week, if not a single ballot.
But now we're stuck with Iowa and push-polling and tiers of handlers and round-the-clock press coverage and all the attenuated rest. Yet there's still at least one charm in this jumble, and it's in the caucus format. These unusual events require a lot of face-to-face talk (at least under the Democrats' rules), and much of it is substantive debate.
What people say about candidates is usually more interesting than anything the candidates say themselves on the hustings, and here's one place where actual ballot-box results ride on how effectively such talk is presented. Unlike a primary, where you represent but your own solitary vote (and you do so silently in the privacy of a booth anyway), in a caucus you can also add as many additional votes for your guy or gal as your argument persuades.
Vigorous debate, whether over our kitchen tables amongst our loved ones or amid strangers at a bus stop, always tones the mind, and that's always a good thing. But these caucus encounters also actually steer the society in their small way.
So go make your best case for Obama or Rodham Clinton today--but also thank newstalk radio. Not merely for the role it plays in our democracy, but also for enhancing, if just a bit, our collective reasoning.
BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle
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